precipice, that afcends till it is almost out of fight, and by its gloomy and tremendous air, ftrikes the mind with a horror that has fomething pleafing in it. This amazing cliff ftands: perpendicular at one end of the lake, at the distance of a few yards, and has an opening at the bottom, that is wide enough for two coaches to enter at once, if the place was dry.. In the middle of it, there is a deep channel,, down which the water rufhes. with a mighty fwiftnefs and force, and on either fide the ftone rifes a yard above the impetuous stream. The afcent is eafy, flat and plain. How far it goes, I know not, being afraid to afcend more than forty yards; not only on account. of the terrors common to the place, from the fall of so much water with a strange kind of roar, and the height of the arch which covers the torrent all the way; but because as I went up, there was of a fuddem an increase of noise fo very terrible, that my heart failed me, and a trembling almost difabled me.. The rock moved under me, as the frightful founds encreased, and as quick as it was poffible for me, I came into day again.. It was well. I did; for I had not been many minutes out, before the water overflowed its channel, and filled the whole opening in rushing to the lake. The increase of the water, and the violence of the: discharge, were an astonishing fight.. Ihadi a great escape.

The cause of the eruption of water

from the in

fide of the mountain, and its fudden encrease.

31. As the rocky mountain I have mentioned, is higher than either Snowden in North-Wales, or Kedar-Idris in Merionethshire, (which have been thought the highest mountains in this island) that is, it is full a mile and a half high from the basis, as I found by afcending it with great toil on the fide that was from the water, and the top was a flat dry rock, that had not the leaft fpring, or piece of water on it, how shall we account for the rapid flood that proceeded from its infide? Where did this great water come from?-I anfwer, might it not flow from the great abyfs-and the great encrease of it, and the fearful noife, and the motion of the rock, be owing to fome violent commotion in the abyss, occafioned by fome natural or fupernatural cause ?

32. That there is fuch an The origin of abyss, no one can doubt that earthquakes. believes revelation, and from reafon and history it is credible, that there are violent concuffions on this vaft collection of water, by the divine appointment: and therefore, I imagine it is from thence the water of this mountain proceeds, and the great overflowing and terrifying found at

certain

certain times. To this motion of the abyss, by the divine power exerted on it, I ascribe the earthquakes; and not to vapour, or electricity. As to electricity, which Dr. Stukeley makes the cause of the deplorable downfall of Lifbon*, in his book lately published, (called, The Philofophy of Earthquakes), there are many things to be objected against its being the origin of fuch calamities:one objection is, and it is an infuperable one, that electrical fhocks are ever momentary, by every experiment, but earthquakes are felt for feveral minutes. Another is, that many towns have been swallowed up in earthquakes, though Lifbon was only overthrown. Such was the cafe of the city of Callao, within two leagues of Lima. Though Lima was only tumbled into ruins, October 28, 1746; yet Callao funk downright, with all its inhabitants, and an unfathomable fea, now covers the finest port in Peru, as I have seen on the spot.-In the earthquake at Jamaica, June 7, 1692, in which feveral thousands perifhed, it is certain, that not only many houses, and a great number of people, were entirely swallowed up; but that, at many of the gapings or openings of the earth, torrents of

November 1, 1755.

water,

water, that formed great rivers, iffued forth. This I had from a man of veracity then-on the fpot, who was an eye-witnefs of these things, and expected himself every minute to defcend to the bowels of the earth, which heaved and fwelled like a rolling fea. Now to me the electrical ftroke does not appear fufficient to produce thefe things. The power of electricity, to be fure, is vaft and amazing. It may caufe great tremors and undulations of the earth, and bring down all the buildings of a great city: but as to fplitting the earth to great depths, and forcing up torrents of water, where there was no fign of the fluid element before, I question much if the vehemence of the elemental electric fire does this.-Befide, when mountains and cities fink into the earth, and the deepest lakes are now feen to fill all the place where they once stood, as has been the cafe in many countries, whence could these mighty waters come, but from the abyss?The great lake Oroquantur in Pegu, was once a vaft city. In Jamaica, there is a large deep lake where once a mountain ftood.--In an earthquake in China, in the province of Sanci, deluges of water burst out of the earth, Feb. 7, 1556, and inundated the country for 180 miles. Many more inftances of this kind I might produce, exclufive of Sodom, the ground of

which was inundated by an irruption of waters from beneath, (which now forms the Dead fea) after the city was deftroyed by fire from above; that the land which had been defiled with the unnatural lufts of the inhabitants might be no more inhabited, but remain a lafting monument of the divine vengeance on fuch crimes, to the end of the world: and the ufe I would make of thofe I have mentioned, is to fhew, that thefe mighty waters were from the furious concuffion of the abyfs that caused the earthquakes. Electricity, I think, can never make feas and vaft lakes to be where there were none before. Locherne, in the county of Fermanagh, in the province of Ulfter in Ireland, is thirty three miles long, and fourteen broad, and, as the old Irish chronicle informs us, was once a place where large and populous towns appeared, till for the great iniquity of the inhabitants, the people and their fair habitations were destroyed in an earthquake, and mighty waters from the earth covered the place, and formed this lake. Could the electrical Stroke produce this fea that was not to be found there before the deftruction? Is it not more reasonable to fuppofe, that fuch vaft waters have been forced by a fupernatural commotion from the great abyfs, in

the